The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
An engine combusts an air/fuel mixture to produce drive torque for a vehicle. An engine control system controls the engine torque output based on driver inputs. In this manner, the driver controls the engine torque output and vehicle speed. A cruise control system regulates the vehicle speed at a target speed set by the driver.
The driver controls the target speed and the cruise control system using various pedals and hand controls. The pedals may include, for example, an accelerator pedal, a brake pedal, and/or a clutch pedal. For example only, the driver may depress the accelerator pedal and set the target speed to a vehicle speed when a desired vehicle speed is reached. The driver may discontinue regulation of the vehicle speed at the target speed by actuating the brake pedal or the clutch pedal.
The driver also inputs commands for the cruise control system using the hand controls. To simply the interface with the cruise control system and reduce the number of hand control interfaces necessary to operate the cruise control system, more than one function may be input using one hand controlled input. In other words, one hand controlled input may be used to perform more than one cruise control function.
The hand control inputs include an ON/OFF input, a SET/COAST input, and a RESUME/ACCELERATE input. The driver actuates the ON/OFF input to enable and disable/deactivate the cruise control system. The driver actuates the SET/COAST input to activate the cruise control system and set the target speed to the vehicle speed. The driver holds the SET/COAST input for at least a predetermined period of time to coast and decelerate the vehicle. The target speed is updated to the slower vehicle speed when the driver releases the SET/COAST input.
The driver actuates the RESUME/ACCELERATE input to resume regulation of the vehicle speed at the target speed. The driver holds the RESUME/ACCELERATE input to accelerate the vehicle. The target speed is updated to the increased vehicle speed when the driver releases the RESUME/ACCELERATE input.
The driver briefly actuates (e.g., taps) the SET/COAST input or the RESUME/ACCELERATE input to incrementally decrease or increase the target speed, respectively. The driver's input to incrementally increase or decrease the target speed is referred to as a tap-up or a tap-down, respectively. The cruise control system generally decrements the target speed when the driver taps-down. However, the target speed may be updated to the vehicle speed when the driver taps-down while the vehicle speed is at least a predetermined speed (e.g., 5 miles per hour) greater than the target speed.